


orichalcum

by mushydesserts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blood, Cannibalism Themes, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Ignis is a merman that eats people, M/M, Mermaids, and not the nice kind, minor injury, the kind that eat people, well mermen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-25 22:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10774044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts
Summary: The young man in the water (not a man, not really) looks at you, seething. There is a single drop of blood on his pale skin where the hook is embedded above his collarbone. His hand scrabbles at the line wound around his throat."Let me go,"he spits. He struggles."Let me go."Lonely Prince Noctis is fishing one day when he catches a merman. Or perhaps the merman catches him. (Kinkmeme fill, complete.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3451.html?thread=3035259#cmt3035259).
> 
> Sorry about the second-person.

You stand, stunned.

The young man in the water (not a man, not really) looks at you, seething. There is a single drop of blood on his pale skin where the hook is embedded above his collarbone. His hand scrabbles at the line wound around his throat.

_"Let me go,"_ he spits. He struggles. _"Let me go."_

There's a gash in his lip and his eyes are sea green and he's the most beautiful thing. You catch your breath. You find your voice, though it is barely audible.

"All right. Let me... just let me help you," you say numbly.

He thrashes as you come near, but the line draws taut and digs deeper. You stop because you do not want to hurt him. You reach out more slowly, and he flinches back from you at first, but then he stills, looking away stubbornly, no longer fighting the waves.

Your fingers unlatch the hook. "Here," you say. You untangle the line, gently, barely touching his skin.

He looks at you. He reaches up, cold fingers against your cheek.

He hisses: _"Boy. I let you catch me."_

He kisses you, crushing his mouth against yours, bitter salt, razor-sharp teeth biting into your lip. You try to pull away. His hand is on the back of your neck.

_Prince Noctis!_ someone calls.

His eyes widen. There's a flash of silver scales, and all there is left is the soft sway of waves against the shore.

You fall back against the dock with a gasp, wood rough against your palm.

You wonder if you had imagined it.

You touch your mouth. You taste salt.

\---

The next time, you are ready.

He does not touch the line this time. You see his eyes first, just above the water, in the shade of the slate rocks off the shore. Water streams from his hair, sandy and streaked with green. If he were human, he could not watch you for as long as he does. A human would need to breathe.

"You," you say. You do not know what possesses you to speak, and as soon as the word leaves your mouth, you are not sure what should follow it.

But he comes nearer, dipping under for a moment and surfacing closer. You can see his nose, his mouth, his white shoulder. It is because you are watching so closely that you see it.

"You're bleeding," you say.

There is something in his back, something that leaves a streak of red in the sea behind him. He does not blink, watching you steadily.

"Let me see," you say. He complies wordlessly.

There is the broken metal tip of a knife lodged in his skin behind his shoulder blade, as if it had caught on scales and snapped off. It does not seem to bother him.

"It will heal," he says, dismissive.

You say, "It will heal better if I get it out."

He lets you approach and dig the shard out of his back, the metal slippery against your fingers. This time he does not flinch. You tug it free with effort, then discard the scrap on the dock. He swims a circle to face you again, inquisitive, with no hint of thanks in his mild gaze.

"Did you not hear me say that I let you catch me?" he says.

You wonder if this was a trick as well, if he will close his hand about your wrist and drag you into the depths. But this time he merely watches you.

You lick your lips. "Where are you from?" you ask.

"The sea," he says.

"But where?"

"Wherever the current takes me."

You look out at the distance horizon where the clouds meet the water. You wonder how deep the oceans really are, how far below the bottom is, where sunken ships rest and sunlight never reaches.

"How long have you... have you been?" you ask. "How many years?"

He cocks his head. "The sea does not keep time like you do," he says.

"How long have you been here?" you ask.

His mouth curves. "Since winter, this time," he says. "Not for a long time before."

He looks young. You wonder how many years he has lived. Decades? Centuries? There are no scars on his skin, or none that you can see. You think of him saying, _It will heal._

You scan the horizon again. The water is calm today, waves low. There are no boats, no fish, no sign of life but the gulls wheeling off the cliffs. "Are there more of you?"

"Somewhere," he says.

"Not here?"

"Not that I know," he says.

He rests, patient, and you think that he could be mistaken for a man if he didn't move so fluidly when he swam.

"Why don't we... why don't we ever catch you?" you ask.

He smiles again, and for a moment you expect him to shake his head at you, like your minders did when you were a child.

"You do," he says. "But we don't stay caught."

You know. He could have dragged you to your death, left nothing but your shoes on the dock. He still could. You wonder why he doesn't.

\---

He rests his head on his arms on the nearby rock, eyes closed in the sun. You dangle your feet over the side, fishing rod forgotten beside you.

"Do you remember all the places you've been?" you ask.

He makes a noise of assent. "Many of them." You watch the water droplets slide down the side of his cheek, sand glimmering when it is caught in the light.

"Do you have a favorite?"

"I have many," he says, but does not elaborate.

You try a different tack. "How many people have you caught?" You are apprehensive. It might still be best to know.

He laughs. "Many."

"Do you remember them?"

He opens his eyes, lazy and pleased. "Some of them."

You lean back slowly and lie on the dock with a sigh, folding your hands behind your head. White clouds drift overhead. Nobody will be expecting you until dinner. Not for the first time, you are glad that you found this place. It is close enough to the palace to come to often, but far enough to be undisturbed. Nobody will look for you here.

"What's on the other side of the sea?" you say. "Across from here?"

He thinks, eyes scouring the heavens. "A warm place," he says slowly. "The sand is softer. There are more fish. Fewer plants. The sun sets later."

"Are there people?"

"Sometimes. You can hear them singing on the shore. Not like here," he adds.

He sounds displeased with you, and for some reason this grates. "We sing," you say defensively. "Just not near the shore. Not outside."

He seems skeptical. "Your kind are not happy here," he says. "You seem... ill-suited for this place."

You are surprised. "Oh yeah?" You laugh, rueful. "You're probably right about that. But I don't think it's because of the environs."

He hums, and you almost catch him glancing at you curiously before he looks away.

You think. "Have you ever been on land?" you ask.

He gives you a look and chuckles. "Why would I want that?" He does shake his head now. "Your kind, always wanting to go places you don't belong."

You find yourself smiling. You look back to the sky.

"Tell me about that place," you say to him. "Across the sea."

\---

You talk.

He tells you about things he has seen in faraway places, places that have no names, that he can only describe in colors and in sounds made by creatures you've never seen. He tells you about the things he finds on the sea floor, foreign things made by people out of metal and wood and glass. He asks you idly for the names of these objects, tries out the sounds in his mouth. He tells you stories, mostly about how stupid humans are when they're in love.

You tell him about life on the land. You tell him about the war, about the fighting, about your father and your mother and their fathers and mothers, about the bombs and the walls and the flying machines. You tell him about fire. You tell him about the captured princess in another kingdom, whom you have not seen in years.

"Your kind. You capture and kill, but you don't eat," he shakes his head, disapproving. "Why?"

"We eat animals," you protest. "We eat fish." He is amused.

You ask him how he can eat humans.

"Whole," he says.

You wrinkle your nose, queasy. "We're not so different from you," you say.

He shrugs. "How do you know we don't eat our own kind?" he says.

You stiffen. You rise to look at him in alarm. "Do you?"

He doesn't answer, smile coy.

You convince him to make you shapes in piles of wet sand, to show you things he has seen but cannot name. He builds you a castle, a ship, a finned serpent the size of a whale. You show him what the land looks like from above, the shapes of continents you remember from maps. He guesses where he's been, draws lines with his finger along the shores he thinks he recognizes.

\---

He eats fish as well, raw, blood smeared across his face. When he offers you some, you turn him down. "I prefer to cook mine," you say kindly, and he shrugs and tears into the meat, concept of fire foreign to him. You are glad he does not starve, and gladder still that he does not seem to have a preference for your flesh over theirs.

You cook your catch over a fire on the shore one night, tent pitched nearby. You prod the coals with a stick and sit back on your heels, watching the smoke rise into the night sky.

"Do you sleep?" you ask the air, drowsy.

"When I feel like it," he says. "During the winter, mostly."

"Where?"

"Wherever I feel. Wherever it's safe."

You frown. "What's dangerous for you?"

He says a word you do not understand, and then tells you in words you do: "Sharks, sometimes. Smaller fish who swim in packs, when they get very hungry." He pauses. "Your kind, on occasion."

You think of the knife shard you found in his back all those days ago. "I thought you only got caught when you choose to get caught."

He tilts his head back wryly. "Sometimes we are not wise about choosing," he says.

\---

He is not always there. You look for the flash of silver scale, but he comes and goes as the fish do, as most things do in the wild.

He always seems to sense you first, and he emerges as soon as you set your bucket down on days when he wants to show you something he has found: a lost tin with a label he cannot read, or a stolen fishing lure, or a piece of tarnished jewelry, or a coin from a wreck. He asks you about paper, and you laugh when you explain that it is useful — when it's not wet. He catches foul-smelling water from somewhere in a bottle once, and demands to know what nonsense people are throwing into the ocean and what it could be useful for.

You apologize. "You tried to eat me," you point out meekly. He huffs.

You start to leave things on the dock for him to find when he is not there at the same time you are. A tin of spices and tea leaves, so he can taste your food and drink. A cushion filled with feathers so he knows what a bed is like. A book. When you come back, there are careful wet fingerprints across some of the pages.

You try to visit often, and you are there more than he is. He always seems unconcerned about where you have been. You also are unconcerned about him. He has lived forever, after all.

You do miss him sometimes.

\---

"Are you afraid of me?" you ask him once as you break open a shellfish. The knife splits the shell with a crack; water spills out. You separate the flesh from the shell and toss it into the bucket. You pick up another.

He examines a discarded shell. The white inside glimmers. "Why would I be afraid?"

You shrug. "You seem to like to hide," you say.

He sets down the shell. "And you aren't afraid of me?" he says.

You are. But it is a pleasurable fear, a faint chill, and it does not keep you away.

"You could call your men down here," he says. "With harpoons and nets and wire cages."

Your knife digs into another shell. "Wouldn't you just swim away?"

"Yes. But it would be disappointing," he says.

Later, as you cook the shellfish in a pot over the fire, you say, "You know I wouldn't." You haven't told anyone about him.

He waves his fins lazily, head pillowed on his arms. He says, "I know."

\---

The only time he is truly interested in your travels is when you travel by airship.

"The air has waves," you say, "Just like the sea."

"But you have no fins," he asserts, "So you must build them."

"I guess that's one way to see it," you say.

You tell him about clouds, about the foam in the sky, about how far you can see from a hot air balloon, like jellyfish made of canvas and fire. You tell him about animals far inland, and this time you have to draw them for him.

"I have seen them," he realizes. Painted on urns lost in the ocean, or carved into stone chests broken open by pirates.

You like the look of surprise in his gaze. You wish you could show him these things.

When you tell him this, he looks back at the sea behind him, thoughtful.

\---

You do not tell him when your travels are dangerous, when they take you through enemy territories and battlefields and scorched lands.

You wonder if he would hear about you if you never returned — overheard from shore chatter, or from sailors on ships passing overhead. You wonder if he will disappear — for a year, or perhaps ten. You wonder if he will surface at another place then, to find someone new to lure into the sea.

You do not think he will worry, but you do sometimes regret that you do not say goodbye before you part.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

\---

Once, you are away for a long time.

When you come back, exhausted, you do not expect him to be there. But he is. He has been waiting.

"There was ice today," he says, floating back and flipping his silver fins into the air.

"She's dead," you say.

He stops.

"The princess," you say. "She's dead."

You sit on the docks that day, knees drawn to your chest. He lays his head on his arm nearby, one hand in your hair, and he hums for you: a strange sad melody, a song without any words.

"Do your kind die?" you ask dully.

"Yes. But not for a long time," he says.

You turn your face into your arms. "Do you miss anybody?" you ask, muffled.

He pauses. "Not for a long time," he says softly.

\---

You are away more now.

The princess has left you a kingdom to save, and tasks by which you must save it. The fighting takes much out of you, as does the leading, planning, grieving. You think of your father now, how old and tired he looked near the end. You recognize the look in your mirror now.

You rarely fish. Sometimes you do go down to the docks, and he is usually there: telling you stories of storms and ships and monsters, or showing you old carved lockets and daggers, or sometimes simply humming a song, letting you rest with your eyes closed.

One time, when you stroll briefly down to the water at sunset, you find a seashell on the dock: black with a white crest, like a crescent moon.

You keep it with you.

\---

When he sees you carrying your sword, he is scornful.

"A blade for a hunter," he declares. "What is it that you wish to hunt?"

"I'm not hunting anything," you say, blade held carefully in your hands. It is light, but it feels heavy. "I need to defend my people."

"Scales are for defending," he says. "Fangs are not."

"Fangs and scales." You sheathe your sword with a faint smile. "You might have both, but not all of us do."

He touches the back of your hand idly, fingers cool and smooth. You ignore how your heart jumps at the sensation. He pinches the soft skin behind your wrist lightly, feeling the warmth, and watching the blood return to the spot when he lets go.

"It is beyond me," he says, "how your kind survive."

"We hunt," you say. "We do it well."

His gaze tells you: it may be so, but you, you are not a hunter. He is right.

You swallow. "I've survived you," you say.

There is a flash of something fierce in his eyes.

"True," he admits.

\---

"Your Majesty?"

You look out over the sea through the wide window, meal forgotten before you. Your advisors prompt you when you stare off for too long.

"We had a Navy once," you say slowly. Ships that ran on iron and magic, slicing through the waves, pulling down floating castles with chains.

One of them nods. "So say the stories, Your Majesty. The gods of the land have not smiled upon this kingdom for a long time." The admission is awkward. "Forgive us, but... I doubt the sea goddess is any more likely to take our side."

"No," you say, looking over the white and gray froth. All the gods were said to be fickle, but the sea goddess' favor was said to be most difficult to win. You think of all those lost at sea in squalls, or during the winter freeze; you think of ash and oil coming down from the air, burning slick on the water. "She must not care for our wars marring her domain."

Your strategists frown at each other, hands flat on their charts. "Do you believe we are at threat by sea?" one hazards. "We might fortify our defenses if you feel we must protect the water."

You watch the ocean. There is a glimmer of silver, briefly caught by the setting sun. It slips under the midnight surface. You look for it again, not sure if you had imagined it.

"No," you say at last. "No. Perhaps it protects us."

\---

You stand on the dock wrapped in your coat. Your breath makes clouds in the air, and tiny clusters of snow collect in your hair. The sky is dark most of the time now.

"How do you see down below? When there's no light?" you say, teeth chattering.

His curious green eyes watch you now more often than you watch him. "There is light below," he says. "And there are warm places, if you know where to look."

You rub your arms. Somewhere behind you, your guards stand on the verandah. They would hear you if you called. You only speak quietly.

"I wonder what it would be like to live on a ship," you muse. "Or an island. Where there are no other people."

"Dull, I suspect," he says gently.

Your lips quirk. "I might like that."

He does not say anything.

\---

Sometimes when you lay in bed, awake despite the fire crackling low on the hearth and the soft canopy above you, you think of the melody without words and close your eyes.

You think of faraway places with shining coral forests, lush green towers of swaying weeds, dark trenches and glowing fish, sunken stone ruins and scattered jewels on the sea floor. You think of airy music and strange warm lights, ships and lanterns and silver and bone. You think of princes with crowns and fins, laughing. You let the blue swim about you.

You touch your lips.

\---

They come for you in the night.

The attack is brazen. Your men are prepared, but there are not enough of them. Your guard falls, and you want to stay, to fight, but an advisor tells you to flee. You do not want their deaths to have been in vain. You flee.

You are bleeding from a wound to the leg, and black smoke chases you from the broken windows of the palace. There is the clash of blades in the distance, the roar of gunpowder. You stumble through the gardens, grass and leaves slick underfoot, eyes near blind in the dark.

There is a lighthouse down the shore, light from the tower cutting through the fog, and you think of the boat moored near it. You stagger towards it.

The soldiers are coming. You can hear their shouts, the whir and clank of armor. You limp, dragging your foot behind you, and you gasp for breath, and you look back, and you draw your sword, though you know it will be useless.

You hesitate. You look up at the light. Below you are the rocks, and the cold black waters lapping at the stone.

You think of silver scales.

You fall.

\---

You wake up on a rock in the moonlight.

He is watching you from the edge of the rock. His eyes are green and cool, skin smooth and white like alabaster. The wind stirs the foam up around him, and the black waves are all you can see around you, the shore a faint light in the distance.

"I could taste your blood in the water," he says.

Your clothes are soaked, full of grit. Your wound burns. Your head aches and spins, but you lift yourself onto your elbow gingerly. You swallow the salt in your mouth away. "What happened to the soldiers?" You are alone, the two of you.

His expression is unreadable. "Three tried to follow you," he says. He does not tell you what happened to them.

You sit up. "I have to go back," you say. "I have a kingdom... a kingdom to save."

He inclines his head. "Of course," he says. But he does not move.

You had asked him once if they had kingdoms in the sea, his kind, wherever he came from. He had told you: _Perhaps they do, somewhere._ He could not remember belonging to one. He had listened to your weary stories about your people, about your duties, with interest and some amazement. _Perhaps you should leave yours,_ he had said. You had laughed.

"Take me back," you say.

He watches you quizzically. "You would be in danger," he says.

You shiver. "Our kind die fast," you say.

"You don't have to," he says.

He looks at you in the moonlight, mouth turned in a strange way. He seems almost hopeful.

You are familiar with him now, with the quirk of his brow and the curve of his nose and the lines of his cheeks, the hum of his voice and the fine texture of his sun-bleached hair, but he is still beautiful, still strange, and you wonder again if he had ever meant to keep you.

You think about telling him, _Take me away from here._

"I can't leave them," you say. "I'm sorry. Please."

The waves crash against the rock.

"Please. Take me back."

He looks at you, rueful. He takes your face in his hand, and he kisses you.

He kisses you like he did that first day at the shore. This time you do not try to pull away. Your hand finds his wrist, and you lean into his mouth.

You feel the sharp teeth pierce the skin of your lip, a sting that turns into a warm tingle, the taste of bitter almonds. You feel a bloom of longing in your chest. Everything fades.

\---

You wake up on the shore at dawn.

You blink at the sky, feeling drowsy, as if waking after a long slumber. Your hair and clothes are crusted with salt. Someone is calling your name.

Your men, you realize. There had been an attack last night. You remember running, drawing your sword. You remember the lighthouse. You remember black water, and moonlight, and...

You...

You remember...

You cannot remember anything else.

\---

You save your kingdom. It takes years, and there are losses, but you do.

Some of your men survived the attack. You regroup, and people whisper about you, about your miraculous survival, about your heroism. The gods are on your side, they say. You carry hope with you. One by one, your enemies turn to you, tiring of being made to do evil by those with power over them. You execute their leaders. You save their homes.

The people rebuild. You watch children come out to play again, see crops grow in the fields again, watch workmen pave torn roads. The air is clearer, black smoke slowly dissipating. It is as if the sun has returned after a long absence.

You mourn the princess. Your kingdom mourns her, honors her; she had been loved, and she helped to save you all. Your advisors ask gently if you plan to marry again.

You say, _maybe one day._ You do not say when.

You think you will take up fishing again. Soon, you think. When everything is calm.

\---

The diplomats and traders come in the following months, seeking help with rebuilding their fallen cities. Your kingdom has begun to open its mines again, and the yield from the harvest is good.

The exchanges are joyous, full of hope and compromise. People come with samples of wares and present you with their stories. Visitors from a land of ice. From the marshlands, the mountains, the forests. From the islands.

"We are small, but we have been independent. We offered refuge to those who fled your land," the woman says. "The war ravaged our nation. We had traded goods with you years ago. Fabrics, embroidered and spun from wool and silk. Wines from winter vineyards. Perfumes..."

"From the honey-scented wildflowers," you say, "that grow across the sea, and nowhere else. A precious gift."

She smiles, surprised. "Yes."

You are not sure how you know this.

\---

You sometimes sit in stolen moments by the sea, dangling your legs over the side of the dock, watching the waves. You think this must be where you found it: the seashell in your pocket.

You often turn to look along the shore, turning the sand and the stones beneath your feet. You discover crabs, washed glass, sand stars, a broken compass. You are not sure what it is you expect to find.

You remember a melody sometimes. Oddly, you cannot remember where you heard it. You try to hum it, but nobody knows where it is from.

\---

You dream of scales, of spears, of sea foam and gleaming knives and blood and invisible threads.

_I'm sorry,_ you say to the grey sky. The tides roar and the ocean spray devours your words. _I'm sorry. I should have..._

I should have...

... you are not sure what you should have done.

\---

"We should move further inland," the advisor says. "To the new Citadel."

You understand. The palace here is damaged from the long war. The people will like to have you nearer to them. The coast is an unhappy place to be if you are attacked — you know this well enough now.

The new Citadel is ready, spires of light and crystal, brave and shining for a new kingdom. The king should be there. You should be there.

You pause. "I would like to stay here longer," you say.

"For what? What are you waiting for?"

_The spring._

"A little longer," you say.

\---

You stand at the bottom of the cliffs, water seeping into your shoes. Small fish swim between the rocks, and white birds soar in the breeze, seeking shellfish. The bright horizon seems close, just too far to touch.

The waters seem to tug gently at your heels as you turn your back. You walk back up the shore.

\---

One day, as you survey the familiar grounds for a last time, someone shouts. "Your Majesty!"

You go down to the water's edge to see what the commotion is. Your men are flustered, crowded together, hands on their weapons. They whirl when they see you. They make to shield you. You wave them off and they part.

You suck in a breath.

A naked young man lies half-drowned in the surf.

He pulls himself haltingly up, hair streaming water and sand, pale legs folded and trembling beneath him. He ignores the confounded advisors and guards standing in the waves around him. As you watch, he turns his head instead towards the beach.

His green eyes flash. He looks at you.

Your heart is in your throat.

You ignore the protests of your men. You wade into the water, the taste of silver on your lips.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd written literally every single other pairing between the guys. Time to fill in the last square in the OT4 bingo, I guess. 
> 
> Bless y'all.


End file.
